Author’s B-Log

As I said in the About page, I loved to write when I was young. I wrote poems and silly stories. Even when I wasn’t writing, my mind was creative with words. When my kids were young they loved my made up stories. I’d make one up on the spur-of-the-moment, winging it as I went along then forget the details when they’d beg me to retell it. Each time I’d tell it differently.  They would say something like, “No Mom, the giant lived on the mountain, not in the forest!” And so on. I had as much fun hearing them correct me as I had telling the stories.

For years, I’ve heard people say I should write a book when they hear bits of my history. I didn’t think much of it until about six years ago when I began tinkering with my keyboard. Shortly after that, God miraculously connected me with my half-brother for the first time. My half’-brother didn’t even know I existed! When I shared this story, some said, “Wow, what an amazing story, you should write a book!” Taking it to heart I became more serious, but slow as a slug.

Over three years ago, my husband and I participated in two separate Department of Health and Welfare home-study visits, each about two hours. These were requited in order to become foster parents. The case worker needed to know in complete detail everything about our childhood and our past. As I shared my story, she listened intently, then said, “Wow, you should write a book!”

My husband looked at her in amazement and asked, “But, in your field of work, don’t you hear this stuff all the time?”

“Yes,” she said, “we see people with plenty of hardships and heartbreaks but hers are so extensive and so intense!”

Since then, I have endured even more unspeakable heartbreaks including the death of my son.  I have also experienced indescribable joy through God’s loving mercy. All along, I have felt God pushing me to write this book. This is one of the reasons I decided to write this blog to help me along with my writing. I am very serious now and will periodically log in with my whereabouts in this writing journey as a way to hold myself accountable and to get myself off the slug trail.

I have actually tried to talk myself out of writing countless times. I have convinced myself that I have nothing to say that anyone would want to read. God’s sure to give me one more nudge each time the doubts knock on my door. The nudges come in the form of something I hear on the radio, read in a book or someone says. Even with that, I still try to make excuses to “get out of writing this book,” but the confirming nudges are just too strong to ignore.

All in all, what I really desire from this blog and my book the most is to encourage people who have experienced heartbreak after heartbreak and feel utterly hopeless and alone in the world. I have been in that place since early childhood. It was in my most hopeless moment not too long ago that God gave me a new hope. His hope. This is what I want to pass on. God has shown me that He loves me gracefully and unconditionally even in the hopeless moments.  With His Love, nothing or anyone is ever truly hopeless.

By ~ Elizabeth Yalian  ©2013